Dok Bok Something

Dok Bok Ki

Or dok bokki. Or duk bok ki. Or toppoki. This Korean dish eludes my ability to spell or pronounce it, as do most things in Korean. Given that I've gotten complements on my Russian pronunciation, I feel like Korean should be within my verbal grasp. But whenever I asked a Korean friend in college about the proper way to say something, I would inevitably butcher it over and over. I was eventually given a look of disgust that translated as "Your thick barbarian tongue will never speak Korean!"

Well, fine. But I can still make dok bok ki.

If you can find a Korean grocery store, you can probably find all the things you need to make dok bok ki. The dok (or was it the bok?) are thick rice noodles, more like rice cakes, which have a nice bouncy, chewy consistency when cooked. Some dok are shaped like little cylinders, and another variety is a disk cut on a bias. Occasionally, you may find tricolor dok, in which the pink and green cakes traditionally are flavored with beet juice and mugwort respectively. The cooked noodles are mixed with spicy red pepper sauce called gochujang. Depending on what variety you get, the spiciness may range from fairly mild to tearjerkingly hot. Mix the sauce up with some veggies and you're good to go(chujang). Steam some baby bok choy and you can have Dok and Bok!! [Insert paleface barbarian laughter here.]

Dok Bok Ki

2 cups dok

Enough chicken broth to cook dok

2 tbsp oil

2 tsp garlic

1/4 cup gochujang

2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp rice vinegar

1 onion, sliced

1 cup tofu, cubed

1/2 cup bamboo shoots

1 cup baby corn

1 cup spinach

Handful of chopped basil

Chopped fresh scallion

Boil the noodles in broth until soft enough to chew- don't overdo it, and make sure to save some of the broth. Sautee garlic in oil until brown, add the onions and cook till golden, then add the tofu, vegetables and the gochujang, and dilute it with some soy sauce, vinegar and a little of the broth from the noodles. Then add the noodles and stir together, letting the dok soak up some of the sauce. The consistency should be light and saucy enough to avoid being clumpy. Sprinkle in some fresh basil and stir, then top with the chopped scallion. Bok appetit.